wraggster
October 14th, 2010, 12:58
More from the Openpandora Team
Well, as said, you can find small up-to-date news snippets in the Official News Area of the Official Boards, however, a lot has happened, so it's time for a little summary on the official site as well.
So far, about 900 units are in the hands of he users. However, there's no need to be afraid if you have been told you're number 450 - 500 in the queue and haven't gotten anything yet. First, that queue number is from Craig's preorders. A fourth of the total units goes to Germany, so you need to substract about 220 units from the 900. Then there were some used for RMAs (about 100, because of the nubs) and about 100 - 150 were one-nubbers where people could skip the queue. So NO, you've not been forgotten, don't worry.
Okay, so where are we right now?
The Cases
All cases needed for the first batch + additional 1000 ones have been produced and painted already.
2000 of those cases did already arrive in UK and are now currently being put together so that only the boards need to be put in.
The rest of the cases (3000) will arrive via ship (that's way cheaper... those 2000 cases did cost 5000 USD shipping costs, whooopeeee!)
The Boards
According to a statement of the owner of the production company from last week, several thousand boards are finished... sounds like a bit of exaggeration, but there should be about 1500 - 2000 finished boards lying in Texas.
Those boards are only missing the nubs, since they've been the biggest problem we had recently.
The Nubs
The nubs were the biggest issue we had. Too many failed right from the start or after a few weeks.
That's why we really had the company redo them and do proper stresstesting - and yes, that's what they're currently doing, and they're fast!
They already got through three new revisions with new prototypes which all have seen improvements!
The goal is that all tested prototype nubs have to survive at least 500K cycles (one cycle is a movement from the middle to max. up, max down and back to the middle). The ones we had didn't even survive 100K cycles, the latest one have survived 300K cycles. The next ones should arrive any day now.
The nubs are the only showstopper we have right now - but once they're finished, production will resume.
The Conclusion
Well, boards are there, cases are there, that's a good thing. Only thing missing are the nubs, but they will follow.
I am currently busy soldering LCD cables. As the boards are being produced and tested in Texas already, all that needs to be done is put the nubs on them when they're finished. At the same time, Craig prepares the 2000 cases: The Pandora can already be fully assembled without the boards. This saves A LOT of time later, as all that'll left to do then is stick in the boards, test and flash.
Pandora and Facebook
http://www.openpandora.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=2&Itemid=2&lang=en
Well, as said, you can find small up-to-date news snippets in the Official News Area of the Official Boards, however, a lot has happened, so it's time for a little summary on the official site as well.
So far, about 900 units are in the hands of he users. However, there's no need to be afraid if you have been told you're number 450 - 500 in the queue and haven't gotten anything yet. First, that queue number is from Craig's preorders. A fourth of the total units goes to Germany, so you need to substract about 220 units from the 900. Then there were some used for RMAs (about 100, because of the nubs) and about 100 - 150 were one-nubbers where people could skip the queue. So NO, you've not been forgotten, don't worry.
Okay, so where are we right now?
The Cases
All cases needed for the first batch + additional 1000 ones have been produced and painted already.
2000 of those cases did already arrive in UK and are now currently being put together so that only the boards need to be put in.
The rest of the cases (3000) will arrive via ship (that's way cheaper... those 2000 cases did cost 5000 USD shipping costs, whooopeeee!)
The Boards
According to a statement of the owner of the production company from last week, several thousand boards are finished... sounds like a bit of exaggeration, but there should be about 1500 - 2000 finished boards lying in Texas.
Those boards are only missing the nubs, since they've been the biggest problem we had recently.
The Nubs
The nubs were the biggest issue we had. Too many failed right from the start or after a few weeks.
That's why we really had the company redo them and do proper stresstesting - and yes, that's what they're currently doing, and they're fast!
They already got through three new revisions with new prototypes which all have seen improvements!
The goal is that all tested prototype nubs have to survive at least 500K cycles (one cycle is a movement from the middle to max. up, max down and back to the middle). The ones we had didn't even survive 100K cycles, the latest one have survived 300K cycles. The next ones should arrive any day now.
The nubs are the only showstopper we have right now - but once they're finished, production will resume.
The Conclusion
Well, boards are there, cases are there, that's a good thing. Only thing missing are the nubs, but they will follow.
I am currently busy soldering LCD cables. As the boards are being produced and tested in Texas already, all that needs to be done is put the nubs on them when they're finished. At the same time, Craig prepares the 2000 cases: The Pandora can already be fully assembled without the boards. This saves A LOT of time later, as all that'll left to do then is stick in the boards, test and flash.
Pandora and Facebook
http://www.openpandora.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=2&Itemid=2&lang=en